The Underground Railroad eBook

The hiding-place was small and he was large.
A sitting attitude was the only way he could possibly
occupy it. He was contented. This place was
“near the range, directly over the boiler,”
and of course, was very warm. Nevertheless, Anthony
felt that he would not murmur, as he knew what suffering
was pretty well, and especially as he took it for granted
that he would be free in about a day and a half—­the
usual time it took the steamer to make her trip.
At the appointed hour the steamer left Norfolk for
Philadelphia, with Anthony sitting flat down in his
U.G.R.R. berth, thoughtful and hopeful. But before
the steamer had made half her distance the storm was
tossing the ship hither and thither fearfully.
Head winds blew terribly, and for a number of days
the elements seemed perfectly mad. In addition
to the extraordinary state of the weather, when the
storm subsided the fog took its place and held the
mastery of the ship with equal despotism until the
end of over seven days, when finally the storm, wind,
and fog all disappeared, and on the eighth day of
her boisterous passage the steamship City of Richmond
landed at the wharf of Philadelphia, with this giant
and hero on board who had suffered for ten months
in his concealment on land and for eight days on the
ship.

Anthony was of very powerful physical proportions,
being six feet three inches in height, quite black,
very intelligent, and of a temperament that would
not submit to slavery. For some years his master,
Col. Cunnagan, had hired him out in Washington,
where he was accused of being in the schooner Pearl,
with Capt. Drayton’s memorable “seventy
fugitives on board, bound for Canada.”
At this time he was stoker in a machine shop, and
was at work on an anchor weighing “ten thousand
pounds.” In the excitement over the attempt
to escape in the Pearl, many were arrested, and the
officers with irons visited Anthony at the machine
shop to arrest him, but he declined to let them put
the hand-cuffs on him, but consented to go with them,
if permitted to do so without being ironed. The
officers yielded, and Anthony went willingly to the
jail. Passing unnoticed other interesting conflicts
in his hard life, suffice it to say, he left his wife,
Ann, and three children, Benjamin, John and Alfred,
all owned by Col. Cunnagan. In this brave-hearted
man, the Committee felt a deep interest, and accorded
him their usual hospitalities.

PERRY JOHNSON, OF ELKTON, MARYLAND.

EYE KNOCKED OUT, ETC.

Perry’s exit was in November, 1853. He
was owned by Charles Johnson, who lived at Elkton.
The infliction of a severe “flogging” from
the hand of his master awakened Perry to consider
the importance of the U.G.R.R. Perry had the
misfortune to let a “load of fodder upset,”
about which his master became exasperated, and in
his agitated state of mind he succeeded in affixing
a number of very ugly stationary marks on Perry’s